Maura prepares a bath, clean clothes, and stew for Josie. When Christy arrives home, he is briefly suspicious but accepts Josie as Maura’s cousin after deciding she resembles Maura’s mother. The three share a pleasant dinner, and for a moment Maura imagines what a happy family life might look like—until Christy glares at her over a bone in his stew, a reminder of his true nature. When Josie says she will stay only one night, Maura insists she can remain longer, and Christy agrees that family is always welcome. Later, Maura tucks Josie in and tells her she can stay for weeks or months if needed.

Five days pass with no sign the abortifacient has worked. Each morning, Josie emerges from the bathroom red-eyed and discouraged, wondering aloud whether she should buy another bottle from Mrs. Stitch. To keep her away from Mrs. Stitch, Maura takes her shopping. At the butcher shop, they run into Bernie and her daughters. Josie tells Bernie the potion failed and asks desperately how Bernie prevents further pregnancies, a question that flusters her.

Back at the house, Josie goes upstairs to rest. When Christy returns and finds she is sleeping through dinner, he insists Maura wake her. As Maura puts away burn cream she had retrieved earlier, she notices several bottles of pills are missing from the cabinet. She rushes upstairs and finds Josie dead, surrounded by empty pill bottles. Christy attempts CPR but declares it too late and goes to call the police. Alone with Josie’s body, Maura knows her lies will be exposed but feels only overwhelming sadness.

Back on the train in 2023, Maura describes Josie’s beauty and tells Saoirse that it ultimately cost the girl her life. When Saoirse asks whether Josie’s parents cared, Maura reveals that Josie’s mother wore black for the rest of her life and died of a heart attack just three years later—everyone knew it was grief and guilt that killed her. Saoirse is frustrated that the mother never stood up to her husband, but Maura gently insists that even if she had, events would likely have unfolded the same way. At Newry station, a woman in her late fifties boards in a slight panic, scolding Maura for not answering her phone. She is Marie Russo, née McCarthy—Bernie’s daughter. Maura introduces her to Saoirse, and when a piece of paper falls from the scrapbook, Marie tears up recognizing her own childhood artwork. She recalls how her mother Bernie encouraged self-expression and how the scrapbook was Bernie’s way of expressing herself.

The two women share a moment of grief for Bernie before Marie asks where Maura is in the story. When Saoirse guesses the police would have discovered Josie was pregnant, Maura explains that they dismissed her death as a routine suicide and never investigated further. Saoirse is outraged that Josie’s abuser faced no consequences, and Maura confirms the community’s response was only shame and gossip directed at Josie herself. Maura promises the next part of the story will show that change was on its way.

In 1970, Bernie is roused from sleep by frantic banging at her door near midnight. Dan answers and finds Maura trembling and ghostlike. Through tears, Maura tells them Josie is dead—she swallowed pills from the medicine cabinet. Maura blames herself, saying that if she had left Josie alone, the girl would still be alive. Bernie insists the blame belongs to Josie’s father and his friend. When Dan asks what the police said, Maura reveals they dismissed Josie as a runaway who broke in looking for pills, a story Christy fabricated for them. Christy told the guards he and Maura didn’t know the girl, and the police believed him. Bernie is horrified that Maura must now return home to a man who knows she lied about Josie being her cousin. She begs Maura to stay, but Dan quietly offers to walk Maura home instead. Despite Bernie’s desperate protests, Maura insists she will be all right and leaves. Alone, Bernie weeps for Josie, for Maura, and for herself—consumed by rage at a world that values only the lives of men.

Maura spends nine days in the hospital with broken ribs and a broken leg. A young, kind doctor she calls “Dr. Bow Tie” speaks to her in careful code about women who “slip on wet floors” and break multiple bones, making clear he knows her injuries are not from a fall. He urges her to come back to him if her floors “become even more slippery,” but Maura cannot bring herself to speak the truth, knowing Dr. Bow Tie is Christy’s colleague (212). Her parents visit; her father scolds her for being clumsy and praises “poor Christy” (213) Bernie and Dan take turns visiting, and Bernie hangs the children’s homemade cards above the bed. Dan carries quiet guilt for having walked Maura home that night.

Geraldine visits and bluntly names what everyone else avoids—that Christy needs to keep his hands off Maura—and warns that next time could be fatal. When Maura asks Geraldine for a pair of trousers to wear home, saying she wants to start wearing them because Christy hates trousers on women, Geraldine recognizes the small act of defiance and cheers her on. Most significantly, Josie’s mother, Regina Battersby, appears at Maura’s bedside. She reveals she had planned to pass the baby off as her own, but her husband refused. She confesses she was not brave enough to save her daughter and will carry that to her grave. After she leaves, Maura finds a handwritten note Geraldine tucked inside the News of the World, directing her to come to Bewley’s on Grafton Street and ask for someone named Nuala.

Maura is discharged on Wednesday against Dr. Bow Tie’s wishes. Christy arrives with roses, outwardly charming but visibly displeased by Maura’s new denim trousers. Dr. Bow Tie pointedly reminds Christy of the severity of Maura’s injuries. In the car, Maura asks to be dropped on Grafton Street, claiming it is Geraldine’s 21st birthday party. Christy grows suspicious but Maura stands her ground, threatening to scream and tell everyone what he does. He releases her roughly on the street, performing tenderness for passing strangers before driving away. Maura, penniless and in a cast, hobbles across the Ha’penny Bridge to Bewley’s, carrying the memory of Josie to give herself strength.

Inside Bewley’s, Geraldine introduces Maura to Nuala Tyrone, who leads a long table of about 11 women—mostly journalists—compiling demands for women’s rights. They discuss abolishing the marriage bar, equal education, and protecting the family home. When Maura rises to speak, she argues that contraception is the most fundamental right of all, declaring that it is her body and should be her choice. The room erupts. A combative journalist named Sharon challenges her, but Nuala and the others rally around Maura’s words. Geraldine whispers that Maura has started something amazing.

Nuala drives Maura home to Rathmines, marveling at the suburban perfection of the neighborhood. She shares that her own mother died in childbirth at forty when Nuala was fifteen, and that she has spent twenty years waiting for women’s lives to be valued beyond keeping house. When Nuala admires Maura’s sparkling net curtains, their conversation becomes a metaphor: Maura says she never wanted to keep them white and would love to rip them down. Nuala seizes on this: “Let’s tear up every damn curtain in the country,” she urges (234). She reveals that Sharon may be able to secure an interview on The Late Late Show through her connections at the national broadcaster RTÉ and begs Maura to appear and tell Irish women what she told the meeting. Maura is terrified, knowing her parents, in-laws, and husband all watch the show. Nuala argues that they need a married, respectable housewife to make the case, since an unmarried woman advocating for contraception would doom the cause. Maura whispers that Christy might actually kill her. Nuala gently suggests that perhaps she should tell people that too. Maura declines, and Nuala, her fire dimmed, helps her to the door.

Maura finds the kitchen in disarray after her absence from the household during her hospital stay. As she washes dishes, Christy creeps up behind her, kissing her neck while cross-examining her about Geraldine’s supposed birthday party. He reveals he visited Switzer’s and learned from the manager that Geraldine’s birthday is actually in April. Trapped between Christy and the sink, Maura strikes him with a crutch when he raises his arm. He laughs it off, but she fights back verbally, telling him Dr. Bow Tie knows the truth. Christy insists no one believes her, but Maura backs toward the front door and screams for the neighbor child, Tilly, to call her mother. The children run, and by the time Mrs. Johnson appears, Christy is speeding away. Mrs. Johnson, the road’s tireless gossip who knows every detail of every household, stands speechless—because she now knows for certain that the rumors about Dr. Davenport are true.

Nine days after the confrontation, it is Saturday night and the McCarthy household follows its weekly ritual: fish and chips, bath time for the girls, an Enid Blyton story from Dan, and then The Late Late Show. Bernie and Dan watch as Maura appears on the panel alongside Sharon and Nuala. The studio audience is hostile from the start—an elderly man looks nauseated, a young man blesses himself, and there is no welcoming applause.

Sharon bluntly tells Gay Byrne that her body is not the church’s business. Nuala invokes the cries of women abandoned at mother-and-baby homes and those who died in childbirth. When Maura finally stands, she argues that some women simply do not want children, for whatever reason. Gay gently asks if the bruises on her face are her reason; Maura replies that it does not matter—she has her reasons and other women have theirs, and that is enough. The camera lingers on her healing bruises, forcing the audience and the nation to see the truth she has not spoken aloud. The segment runs an hour over as the debate intensifies. When Gay asks if the women would buy condoms in a shop, Dan is so shocked to hear the word on television that he nearly chokes. All three women say yes. Nuala tells Gay to “watch this space” (250). After the credits roll, Bernie stands in the kitchen knowing that every woman in Ireland will now be watching.

After the show, Maura, Sharon, and Nuala emerge from RTÉ studios into the cold midnight air, dazed and uncertain about what comes next. In the guest carpark, a group of six young men surrounds them, calling them “whores, harlots, [and] sluts” (253). Two studio security guards, Pat and Gary, chase the men off. Pat reveals that he and Gary watched the show on a small portable television in their hut. He shares that his wife Nancy had a difficult fifth birth 15 years ago, and they have slept in separate beds ever since because they have no access to contraception. He tells the women he admires them and hopes they can change things for younger couples.

Maura explains that living with Nuala is strange, but she is grateful for Nuala’s company in her home. After her fight with Christy on the night of the meeting at Bewley’s, Nuala returned to her house, sensing somehow that Maura needed her. Nuala has stayed ever since, and Christy has still not returned, though Maura fears every day that he will. As they return to Maura’s house on the night of the television show, Nuala spots Mrs. Johnson and Tilly standing at their window past midnight, offering a thumbs-up through the parted curtains. Maura is deeply moved—women will support them, even if only from behind twitching curtains. At the front door, Maura feels a hand on her shoulder and freezes in terror, certain it is Christy. Instead, it is Bernie, who has cycled across Dublin on Dan’s bicycle to say she is proud of her. They embrace in the dark.

Moments later, Maura’s parents emerge from the shadows near the house. Her father is furious and ashamed, calling her a “tramp” for discussing contraception on national television and lamenting that her mother can never show her face at mass again (263). When Maura’s mother weeps silently without speaking up, Bernie blurts out the truth—that Christy broke Maura’s leg with a kick, slammed her face into a wall, pushed her down the stairs, and broke her ribs.

A devastating realization hits Maura: her father’s expression does not change because he already knew. Her mother touches her bruised cheek with icy fingers but will not defy her husband. Maura declares she will not stop fighting for women’s rights, that no one was going to stand up for her so she had to stand up for herself. Her father demands obedience; Bernie tells them to leave. Before they go, Maura’s mother asks how she will survive without Christy. Maura thinks of the biscuit tin hidden under the sink, where she has been secretly saving money—coins from Christy’s pockets, change from the shops—since the first time he hit her, always knowing deep down that life with him could not last. After her parents shuffle away, Bernie asks if Maura can live with the possibility that they may never understand. Maura answers yes—she has to.